Lady into Fox, Page 2

moderate theirclamour.

  Having got her into the house, the next thing he thought of was to hideher from the servants. He carried her to the bedroom in his arms andthen went downstairs again.

  Mr. Tebrick had three servants living in the house, the cook, theparlour-maid, and an old woman who had been his wife's nurse. Besidesthese women there was a groom or a gardener (whichever you choose tocall him), who was a single man and so lived out, lodging with alabouring family about half a mile away.

  Mr. Tebrick going downstairs pitched upon the parlour-maid.

  "Janet," says he, "Mrs. Tebrick and I have had some bad news, and Mrs.Tebrick was called away instantly to London and left this afternoon, andI am staying to-night to put our affairs in order. We are shutting upthe house, and I must give you and Mrs. Brant a month's wages and askyou to leave to-morrow morning at seven o'clock. We shall probably goaway to the Continent, and I do not know when we shall come back. Pleasetell the others, and now get me my tea and bring it into my study on atray." Janet said nothing for she was a shy girl, particularly beforegentlemen, but when she entered the kitchen Mr. Tebrick heard a suddenburst of conversation with many exclamations from the cook.

  When she came back with his tea, Mr. Tebrick said: "I shall not requireyou upstairs. Pack your own things and tell James to have the waggonetteready for you by seven o'clock to-morrow morning to take you to thestation. I am busy now, but I will see you again before you go."

  When she had gone Mr. Tebrick took the tray upstairs. For the firstmoment he thought the room was empty, and his vixen got away, for hecould see no sign of her anywhere. But after a moment he saw somethingstirring in a corner of the room, and then behold! she came forthdragging her dressing-gown, into which she had somehow struggled.

  This must surely have been a comical sight, but poor Mr. Tebrick wasaltogether too distressed then or at any time afterwards to diverthimself at such ludicrous scenes. He only called to her softly:

  "Silvia--Silvia. What do you do there?" And then in a moment saw forhimself what she would be at, and began once more to blame himselfheartily--because he had not guessed that his wife would not like to gonaked, notwithstanding the shape she was in. Nothing would satisfyhim then till he had clothed her suitably, bringing her dresses from thewardrobe for her to choose. But as might have been expected, they weretoo big for her now, but at last he picked out a little dressing-jacketthat she was fond of wearing sometimes in the mornings. It was made ofa flowered silk, trimmed with lace, and the sleeves short enough to sitvery well on her now. While he tied the ribands his poor lady thankedhim with gentle looks and not without some modesty and confusion. Hepropped her up in an armchair with some cushions, and they took teatogether, she very delicately drinking from a saucer and taking breadand butter from his hands. All this showed him, or so he thought, thathis wife was still herself; there was so little wildness in herdemeanour and so much delicacy and decency, especially in her notwishing to run naked, that he was very much comforted, and began tofancy they could be happy enough if they could escape the world and livealways alone.

  From this too sanguine dream he was aroused by hearing the gardenerspeaking to the dogs, trying to quiet them, for ever since he had comein with his vixen they had been whining, barking and growling, and allas he knew because there was a fox within doors and they would kill it.

  He started up now, calling to the gardener that he would come down tothe dogs himself to quiet them, and bade the man go indoors again andleave it to him. All this he said in a dry, compelling kind of voicewhich made the fellow do as he was bid, though it was against his will,for he was curious. Mr. Tebrick went downstairs, and taking his gun fromthe rack loaded it and went out into the yard. Now there were two dogs,one a handsome Irish setter that was his wife's dog (she had brought itwith her from Tangley Hall on her marriage); the other was an old foxterrier called Nelly that he had had ten years or more.

  When he came out into the yard both dogs saluted him by barking andwhining twice as much as they did before, the setter jumping up and downat the end of his chain in a frenzy, and Nelly shivering, wagging hertail, and looking first at her master and then at the house door, whereshe could smell the fox right enough.

  There was a bright moon, so that Mr. Tebrick could see the dogs asclearly as could be. First he shot his wife's setter dead, and thenlooked about him for Nelly to give her the other barrel, but he couldsee her nowhere. The bitch was clean gone, till, looking to see how shehad broken her chain, he found her lying hid in the back of her kennel.But that trick did not save her, for Mr. Tebrick, after trying to pullher out by her chain and finding it useless--she would not come,--thrustthe muzzle of his gun into the kennel, pressed it into her body and soshot her. Afterwards, striking a match, he looked in at her to makecertain she was dead. Then, leaving the dogs as they were, chained up,Mr. Tebrick went indoors again and found the gardener, who had not yetgone home, gave him a month's wages in lieu of notice and told him hehad a job for him yet--to bury the two dogs and that he should do itthat same night.

  But by all this going on with so much strangeness and authority on hispart, as it seemed to them, the servants were much troubled. Hearing theshots while he was out in the yard his wife's old nurse, or Nanny, ranup to the bedroom though she had no business there, and so opening thedoor saw the poor fox dressed in my lady's little jacket lying back inthe cushions, and in such a reverie of woe that she heard nothing.

  Old Nanny, though she was not expecting to find her mistress there,having been told that she was gone that afternoon to London, knew herinstantly, and cried out:

  "Oh, my poor precious! Oh, poor Miss Silvia! What dreadful change isthis?" Then, seeing her mistress start and look at her, she cried out:"But never fear, my darling, it will all come right, your old Nannyknows you, it will all come right in the end."

  But though she said this she did not care to look again, and kept hereyes turned away so as not to meet the foxy slit ones of her mistress,for that was too much for her. So she hurried out soon, fearing to befound there by Mr. Tebrick, and who knows, perhaps shot, like the dogs,for knowing the secret.

  Mr. Tebrick had all this time gone about paying off his servants andshooting his dogs as if he were in a dream. Now he fortified himselfwith two or three glasses of strong whisky and went to bed, taking hisvixen into his arms, where he slept soundly. Whether she did or not ismore than I or anybody else can say.

  In the morning when he woke up they had the place to themselves, for onhis instructions the servants had all left first thing: Janet and thecook to Oxford, where they would try and find new places, and Nannygoing back to the cottage near Tangley, where her son lived, who was thepigman there.

  So with that morning there began what was now to be their ordinary lifetogether. He would get up when it was broad day, and first thing lightthe fire downstairs and cook the breakfast, then brush his wife, spongeher with a damp sponge, then brush her again, in all this using scentvery freely to hide somewhat her rank odour. When she was dressed hecarried her downstairs and they had their breakfast together, shesitting up to table with him, drinking her saucer of tea, and taking herfood from his fingers, or at any rate being fed by him. She was stillfond of the same food that she had been used to before hertransformation, a lightly boiled egg or slice of ham, a piece ofbuttered toast or two, with a little quince and apple jam. While I am onthe subject of her food, I should say that reading in the encyclopediahe found that foxes on the Continent are inordinately fond of grapes,and that during the autumn season they abandon their ordinary diet forthem, and then grow exceedingly fat and lose their offensive odour.

  This appetite for grapes is so well confirmed by Aesop, and by passagesin the Scriptures, that it is strange Mr. Tebrick should not have knownit. After reading this account he wrote to London for a basket of grapesto be posted to him twice a week and was rejoiced to find that theaccount in the encyclopedia was true in the most important of theseparticulars. His vixen relished them exceedingly and seemed never toti
re of them, so that he increased his order first from one pound tothree pounds and afterwards to five. Her odour abated so much by thismeans that he came not to notice it at all except sometimes in themornings before her toilet. What helped most to make living with herbearable for him was that she understood him perfectly--yes, every wordhe said, and though she was dumb she expressed herself very fluently bylooks and signs though never by the voice.

  Thus he frequently conversed with her, telling her all his thoughts andhiding nothing from her, and this the more readily because he was veryquick to catch her meaning and her answers.

  "Puss, Puss," he would say to her, for calling her that had been a habitwith him always. "Sweet Puss, some men would pity me living alone herewith you after what has happened, but I would not change places whileyou were living with any man for the whole world. Though you are a fox Iwould rather live with you than any woman. I swear I